Has It Been 18 Months Already?

Dahlia is now 18 months old. At her latest check-up, she was 24.4 lbs (55th percentile) and 31.5 inches tall (50th percentile). She still has a large head (75th percentile). Dahlia is in good health and is growing well. She's also extremely active. Now she runs around like Speedy Gonzales, climbs anything and everything, and enjoys being chased around the house. She has well over 40 words in her vocabulary, including some multilingual items such as "agua," and has learned to say "mo milk peze" (more milk please) to complement old standards like "mine mine mine!!!"

It has been some time since we've posted new pictures. Dahlia's parents broke one camera and lost the spare, so photos have been few and far between. Thankfully a new camera is on its way. It will even come with an "active child mode," and we'll see whether that's good enough to keep up with Dahlia.

In the meantime, here's a combination of recent photos and many pictures that were taken by Aunt Erica during her visit in March.

Hanging around with mommy:

Showing off that winning smile:

Dahlia LOVES drinking milk from straws at restaurants. The only problem is that she (and innocent bystanders like her parents) usually end up soaked by the end of the meal. Dahlia hasn't figured out that you don't need to tilt the cup back or remove the straw in order to get the milk:

Dahlia loves to eat "a-go" (yogurt), cheese, "cheechee" (chicken or cheerios, depending on context), and enormous amounts of fruit. At any given time, her belly is probably filled with fruit and yogurt.

But in these pictures she's eating her favorite food in the whole world: beans! It's a good thing Dahlia lives in Texas, where cheesy beany burritos are available in almost every restaurant.

Dahlia used to love vegetables of any sort, but lately she's been rewriting the nutrition books, calling ketchup her vegetable of the evening and dipping into mom's milkshake for her daily dose of calcium:

Dahlia also loves to dance and sing. "Row, row, row your boat" and "5 little monkeys jumping on a bed" are big favorites, as are Japanese songs like "itomaki maki" and "musuunde hiraite." Here Dahlia and mommy are dancing to "ring around the rosie."